Pucker Up, Ducky
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day two hundred and sixty-one: One week to freshman year, and Puck has a challenger for his diving board.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th cycle. Now cycle 13!_

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**"Pucker Up, Ducky"  
Puck & Brittany  
A/N: This was originally planned circa-Laryngitis, out of Britt mentioning 'her perfect record' (... and then Journey happened ;))**

Freshman year would start the following week, but that hardly meant that summer was over. If anything, they were enjoying it even more – as much as they could, while they still had the chance.

Brittany spent most of her days at the public pool with a couple of girls who lived on her street. They'd all go there together, in the morning. Around lunch, they'd all go home, and then Brittany would go back to the pool, meeting some more friends. She'd see a lot of the kids from school there, though she didn't know most of their names.

One of them made it his business to let his presence be known though, and that was Noah Puckerman. He'd push people into the pool when the lifeguard wasn't looking, do cannonballs off the diving board, and he'd challenge any kid there to try and beat him in swimming one lap back and forth. No one had managed to beat him, and the cries of victory that he gave were enough to discourage most people from even trying. So he would usually resort to his other activities. When he was making his passes, most kids tried to stay out of the way.

Brittany wanted to take a dive off one of the boards, much to her friends' insistence that she should wait, pointing out as Puck threw a big haired kid with glasses in the water. She gave them a shrug and headed up to go stand on the board. As she was getting into a jump though, she felt the board buckle under a new weight, so she turned her head.

"Hi," she greeted Puck, standing just a couple paces behind her.

"You're on my board," he nodded. She looked down, as though she expected to find a name written.

"There's another one," she pointed. He took another step, but she didn't come off scared at all. Then she said the words to stop him. "I'll race you for it." He considered it, then nodded. He backed up off the board, waiting there like he expected her to come down and go to the other board, leaving this one for him. She didn't move, waiting just as he did for him to take the other board. The standoff lasted about thirty seconds before Puck glared and threw his hands in the air.

"Guess I'll just have to win it from you," he spoke as he climbed on the board. In the time it had taken for them to take their positions, they had managed to gather up an audience, to the point where the pool was just about empty. They braced to jump, and both looked to one another… Puck smirked like a racer who finally had a decent opponent to square off against… She just looked like she knew she'd win.

They hit the water almost at the same time. Puck had counted them down from three, two, one… and made to jump in advance, but the moment he moved she did as well. He always went on about being 'in the zone' and focused; he didn't see anything as he swam, just the turn coming up and then the finish line. When he got there, he expected a wide advance on his competition, as he couldn't even see her when his head broke out of the water. He began to cheer, reaching to tap 'his' diving board overhead… but then his hand touched skin and he startled. Looking up, a head peeked out, water dripping from wet blonde hair. There was Brittany, lying stomach down on the board, staring back.

"So did I win?" she asked, as the 'audience' cheered and laughed. Puck grunted and swam off. Soon after Brittany jumped back in and came along to follow him. "You can have it if it means that much."

"No way," he huffed, then, "How the hell did you get up there so fast, got webbed toes or something?"

"No?" she blinked. "We could race again… I could go slower," she nodded, moving to be facing him. "Really, I will," she insisted.

"I thought you wanted the board," he pointed out. She shrugged.

"I just want to be able to use it." He was starting to consider the do-over race, even if it would be fixed, since she could clearly swim flawless circles around him. But then the lifeguard blew his whistle, standing at the edge.

"Puckerman, we've talked about the shoving!" he called out. Puck looked around until he found Jacob, who gave himself up as the squealer when he skittered off at being spotted. "Get on home," the lifeguard hooked his thumb toward the exit. Puck shrugged and swam off to the edge closest to his things. He put on his sandals, throwing his shirt over his shoulder. When he reached the exit, there was Brittany, with her shoes and shirt just as he had.

"What is it with you, always one step ahead," he groaned.

He started off walking toward home. As he could have guessed, she tagged along. He supposed he didn't mind it. He kind of had to face it: she had grown in all the right places, and a guy had to be blind or otherwise oriented not to feel something going on. Sure, she could be kind of weird, and a lot of them were fairly certain she wasn't all there… But then that didn't really matter in this case, did it? With that in mind…

"Want to come over to my place?" he asked. She looked at him.

"Sure," she shrugged. So she continued following him. He didn't live too far from the pool – neither did she – so that was part of the appeal. His mother was at work; his sister was at summer camp… He had the house all to himself, and now to Brittany, too.

"We can't sit on the couch, the water… My mother's got some weird sense for these things, she'll know… and then she'll yell," he explained as he led her to the backyard. When she stepped out, he heard her gasp, and he knew why – she'd seen the old trampoline in the corner. "Yeah, it's broken. It's kind of a death trap now." She pouted at that. He cleared his throat, indicating the table with the long benches – he had to get that pout gone, and he had a pretty good idea how. "So you can use the board," he nodded; smiled. "But just you." She laughed.

"Okay," she nodded. He turned to her, gave her a look. She kept on laughing, but she seemed to know where he was heading. They came out of it with one base rounded… all in all a good deal for having to share a diving board.

THE END


End file.
